Featured Roosevelter

Brianna Cea

Meet the Roosevelters

A New Plan for American Cities To Free Themselves of Wall Street’s Control

By Saqib Bhatti | 08.31.15

Share:

http://bit.ly/1PjOoli

Roosevelt’s Saqib Bhatti takes a deep look at how to how to free cities across the country from Wall Street’s Control in an opinion piece for In These Times.

Wall Street banks are setting arbitrary fees that are creating budget headaches and forcing cities to pay money to Wall Street instead of important services like trash-collection, schools and long-term investments.

He calls for city and state government to band together and fight Wall Street:

They have enough bargaining power to set their own. Together, they could refuse to sign contracts that prevent them from publicly disclosing fees.

Saqib Bhatti is a Fellow at the Roosevelt Institute and the Director of the ReFund America Project (RAP). He works on campaigns to rebalance the relationship between Wall Street and local communities by exposing the role that financial deals play in contributing to public budget distress.